Hebrew and Arabic as Languages of Science for Jews in Late Medieval Sicily: The Case of Shalom Yerushalmi

In my lecture, I shall focus on the exchange of scientific knowledge between the Muslim and Jewish cultures from a linguistic perspective. The centre of my talk will be the Jewish polymath from Syracuse, Shalom Yerushalmi, who reached the Ottoman Empire after the expulsion of the Jews from the Kingdom of Sicily in 1492. Shalom Yerushalmi is mostly known as a copyist of Hebrew scientific works. However, a careful analysis of his scientific commentary to Abraham Ibn Ezra’s biblical commentary, Shabbat Shalom, which covers a plethora of subjects (ranging from astronomy, mathematics and Hebrew grammar, to astrology and even mystics) and hitherto unstudied, reveals a selection of Yerushalmi’s original works, mostly in mathematics, now sadly lost. Interestingly, Yerushalmi attests to having also written in the Arabic language. This constitutes significant evidence of the continuing usage of the Arabic language (probably written in Judeo-Arabic) alongside Hebrew among Sicilian Jewish intellectuals well into the end of the fifteenth century.